


the eighth and final rule

by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Age Difference, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Barebacking, Begging, Blow Jobs, Canon Character of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, Come Eating, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, First Time, Gil Arroyo Whump, Guilt, Kink Negotiation, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Nipple Play, Older Man/Younger Man, Oral Sex, Peril, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:02:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23290651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: “You know, Gil, I’ve thought a lot about killing you over the years,” Martin says, rubbing the life back into his hands as he takes a slow step forward. He strips the remaining tape clumped to his wrists and drops the pieces to the dirt before he gestures at the platform. “Not precisely like this, of course. I have to say, the audience is a welcome surprise.”[Problem number one: Gil Arroyo is about to face off against Martin Whitly in a sadistic Fight Club with Malcolm's life on the line as a prize.Problem number two: For the past six months since Malcolm has come back into his life, Gil's been dealing with the awful realization that his feelings aren't as platonic or paternal as he wishes they were.]
Relationships: Gil Arroyo/Malcolm Bright
Comments: 29
Kudos: 103
Collections: Prodigal Son Trash Swap Spring 2020!





	1. the models for God

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Twice_before_Friday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/gifts).



> Dear Friday, please enjoy. I couldn’t pick between your prompts so I combined several of them. Love, Your ~~_Probably-_~~ _Definitely_ -Not-So-Secret Santa. PS enjoy the Fight Club references that no one but me cares about.
> 
> Background pairings: a lot of Gil/Jackie feelings, and some Malcolm/OMC

Gil lifts his head as sound echoes off the walls. He knows he’s been brought underground, but it isn’t until a generator kicks on and lights come up that he sees precisely where he is: on the tracks in an abandoned subway platform. He squints as his eyes adjust after having spent at least an hour in utter darkness.

There’s graffiti everywhere, chaotic layers of paint in dozens of colors. A few walls have larger murals, the sort that a crew has clearly spent a lot of time on. Can’t be too hard to get here, wherever _here_ is. Gil knows of a few stations this size, but there are dozens across the boroughs. He could be in any one of them.

“This will be fun,” Martin says from his left.

Gil glances over, and though he’s glad to know he hadn’t been imagining the sound of someone else breathing in the dark, seeing Martin similarly trussed up to a support beam doesn’t bode well. Beyond Martin, the pair of tracks stretch away into thick, impenetrable shadows.

Metal screeches—a gate opening?—and a familiar, strong-jawed face comes strolling into view atop the platform. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” says Stanley Archer, Gil’s one-time training officer, “meet our entertainment for the evening.”

* * *

_The previous day_

Gil idles at the curb and nods towards Claremont’s imposing structure as Malcolm tucks away his phone and reaches for the door handle.

“You want me to go in there with you, kid?” Gil asks. “Or wait until you’re done?”

“I’ll be fine,” Malcolm tells him, blowing out a soft puff of breath that could be irritation or trying to prepare himself to be in the same room with his father again.

Gil spots the slight tremble of Malcolm’s fingers before he pulls the handle. These days, it’s a tossup whether or not he believes Malcolm when he insists that he’s fine, or that the situation’s fine, or hell, even if his morning coffee is fine. 

“I’ll wait,” Gil says. He kills the engine and ignores the look Malcolm gives him. He’s not trying to be patronizing, but even if it seems like the kid has leveled out a bit, he’s still a touch… fragile. He can see it in the way Malcolm has doubled down on this case, throwing himself into every aspect of it and finding any excuse to be in the station around the team.

“You really don’t have to,” Malcolm says, leaning back down to hang on the open door. His eyes look impossibly blue in the weak light of dusk.

“Are you trying to waste time? It was your idea to talk to Martin.”

“I’ll be back in fifteen,” Malcolm promises.

The minutes tick by. When it gets close to thirty, Gil remains unworried; with Claremont’s systems and labyrinthine halls, it takes at least ten minutes just to get past security alone. He kills time by people-watching and listening to the radio, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and humming along to throwbacks from the early ‘90s that remind him, as they always do, of Jackie. 

He smiles faintly, remembering how she’d insisted on keeping her old boombox long after CDs had taken over. The one she’d always cranked up courtside blasting Salt-n-Pepa and that had eventually taken up way too much space in their first apartment. Even near the end, she’d find an excuse to fire up mixtapes loaded up with Whitney and Mariah and all the big ballads on one side, and on the other, the slow jams meant to grind to. God, he misses her.

She’d be incensed over this case. They’re looking now at four bodies of recently released inmates dumped along the river at a rate of roughly one per month, all of them randomly bruised and battered. With no clear overlap between gang affiliation inside or outside of prison, Gil’s positive Malcolm’s profile is right on the money: whoever is beating those men to death believes they’re disposable. Jackie, on the other hand, had believed no one was disposable and beyond redemption, not even Martin Whitly.

Gil sighs and flips off the radio. Would she continue to believe in redemption if she were still here and knew the awful thoughts her husband has to bury around Malcolm? How he catches himself looking at the young man she’d considered a son and thinking about that sweet mouth stretched around his cock.

It hadn’t always been this way; he’s not that fucked up. Hell, six months ago it had never even crossed his mind. In the grand scheme of things, it seems like one minute Malcolm had been an awkward kid in his passenger seat soaking up every lesson on police work like a sponge, and then in the next, a full-fledged law enforcement agent, a man in his own right. That quiet, broken kid still exists in Gil’s memory, but it’s difficult at times to reconcile that memory with the man Malcolm is now.

Sure, Malcolm’s still too smart for his own good, doesn’t always have the best brain-to-mouth filter, and certainly doesn’t know when to give up, but that tenacity is something Gil respects—something the whole team respects. And it’s that admiration edging on pride that’s gone sideways somehow, made him dwell on how Malcolm probably brings that same competence and bratty perseverance into all aspects of his life, including the bedroom.

Gil catches sight of Malcolm coming down the path, slight and trim in his three-piece suit. It’s hard to say if these visits to Claremont are a reflection of his self-destructive habits or if, in the end, they’ll do Malcolm some good. 

At times, Gil thinks that what Malcolm could really use is someone to come home to, a steady presence who can provide structure or solace or hold him through the night. Who can give him whatever he needs and calm down that constant chaos in his head.

He yearns for the chance.

If he pushed even the slightest, Malcolm would give. There’s no question about it. Gil might not be a profiler, but he’s been doing this job a long time, and he knows the look. Ten years ago, Malcolm hadn’t been as good at hiding it, but now that he’s back in Gil’s life again, it’s far more subtle—and far more desperate. It’s no longer something that he and Jackie can chuckle about over a glass of wine; now it _gets_ to him, low in his guts, deep in his lizard brain.

As Malcolm slides back into the car, Gil swallows all that down and starts up the engine. The purr is a far cry from the Le Mans’ roar. “Everything go okay in there?” he asks.

The kid’s expression is thoughtful, his brow furrowed. “Hm? Yeah. There was a new guard on staff who looked startled to see me and then went out of his way to avoid me. He looked familiar, but I can’t place him. Maybe I’d had a run in with him during my time with the Bureau.”

“Do you want me to make some calls and get some names?”

“No, it’s fine. It could also be that he just has one of those faces, and honestly, I wouldn’t blame anyone for trying to avoid someone on The Surgeon’s visitation list.”

But Malcolm can’t stop thinking about that guard the whole way back to his place. Whenever Gil glances over, Malcolm’s rubbing his thumb against his lip thoughtfully, turning the encounter over and over again in his mind.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing. They’ve got so little to go on and it doesn’t seem like Martin’s been much help, so something else to distract him could be a positive. Better a wild goose chase than getting endlessly frustrated spinning his wheels on a case with no witnesses and no real leads.

“You should go out,” Gil says, interrupting his own thoughts spiralling as Malcolm keeps worrying at his lip. “Have a little fun for once, maybe meet someone. I could drop you off somewhere besides your place.”

“Meet someone? Do you remember how well that went the last time?”

“I’m just saying that you could stand to do something other than hole up with your bird and read night in and night out. It’s a big city; enjoy it while you’re young.”

Malcolm looks sidelong at him with a hint of exasperation. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  


* * *

  


At a quarter past one, Malcolm blows up his phone. Gil doesn’t catch it in time, still fumbling for his glasses as he flips the light on. The call goes to voicemail and the screen goes dark. It brightens again a second later when Malcolm elects to call back rather than leave a message.

Gil thumbs the button to answer. “If you’re calling to tell me you have a new profile, it can wait until morning,” he says, bringing the phone to his ear.

“What? Noooo, it’s nothing to do with the case,” Malcolm says, words slurring slightly. “I thought you should know that I took your advices—advice! I went out, Gil, to a bar. And I Matt, I mean, I met...Matt. He’s fucking gorgeous and he’s in finance—hah—I almost said fine ass which also applies.”

“Are you drunk?”

 _“Very,”_ Malcolm says, over-enunciating.

Gil can practically see Malcolm’s expression: the broad grin, the emphatic widening of his eyes. A flicker of worry goes through him. “Stay safe, kid.”

“I know, I know. Always use a condom. I just wanted to— Oh, he’s back, I gotta go.”

Gil overhears a promise before Malcolm hangs up, a muffled: _“Your place, right? I’m going to give it to you so hard, honey.”_

A confusing mix of jealousy, anger, and lust immediately takes up space in Gil’s gut. His imagination is already working overtime wondering what sort of guy Matt is—if he’s all right or if he’s trouble. And if Malcolm’s taking him back home, what then? Is he going to strap Malcolm down to the bed to fuck him, or would they even make it that far? He might bend Malcolm over one of those barstools that stand at the perfect height.

Admittedly Gil’s imagined it more than once. He drops his phone into the lonely stretch of bed beside him and tosses his glasses there with it, the images already filling his mind: hinging Malcolm over one of those stools, putting hands to his ass to spread him open. That strong, lithe body and pert bottom…the little gasping sound he’d make if Gil spit right on his hole and thumbed him open.

Gil’s got a hand on himself through his boxers, lightly tugging at his cock. It’s not the first time he’s lain here like this, jerking off to the idea of fucking Malcolm, but this time while he’s imagining it, someone else is getting the real thing. Someone who Malcolm is into for reasons other than a hefty dose of misguided hero worship. Who hopefully isn’t nearly twice the kid’s age.

Reluctantly, Gil pulls his hand away, the thrill quickly going from fire to ash. He stares at the ceiling for a few breaths before admitting that he’s too wired to go right back to sleep. With a soft grunt, he throws aside the covers and sits up to slide his feet into his slippers.

He shuffles into the kitchen to grab a glass of water before dropping onto the couch to watch a little mindless late-night television. He’s never cared much for talk shows beyond their opening monologues, but Jackie always liked curling up next to him, feet on the cushions to hear about what new movies were coming down the line. Neither the television nor reminiscing take his mind off things—he keeps drifting back to wondering if Malcolm’s gotten that guy home yet or if they’re in the back of a cab doing their best not to climb down one another’s throats.

The B-list celebrity on the couch is a good conversationalist, but Gil still has no idea what the woman is promoting by the time he’s wound down enough to scoop up the remote to click off the TV. In the sudden silence, he hears the muffled sound of his phone ringing.

He hastens into the bedroom and rescues his phone from under the duvet, answering without looking, prepared to grab his keys and head out the door the moment the kid tells him what’s wrong. But it’s not a minor crisis or a hookup gone bad.

Malcolm’s drunken ass has just butt-dialed him.

There’s laughing and two voices, one of them clearly belonging to Malcolm. _“I think I dropped my phone,”_ he’s saying.

_“Behind the bed?”_

_“Behind the bed. I can get it. I should get it.”_

_“I don’t think you can reach that.”_

_“No?”_

_“Not while I’m doing this.”_

A moan ripples out of Malcolm’s throat and goes straight to Gil’s dick. He should hang up. Right now. His pulse kicks up as another softer, quieter moan reaches his ears.

_“Fuck that feels good, but if I roll over, I can definitely reach.”_

There’s a wet sucking sound, and Malcolm’s date saying, _“Well… if you have to roll over,”_ then a rustling and a loud smack, and if Malcolm really is attempting to grab his phone he either gives up right away or quickly stops caring.

 _“You can do that a whole lot harder,”_ Malcolm says. He sounds breathy, anticipatory.

 _”Yeah?”_ A loud crack—palm meeting bare skin—drives a yelp out of Malcolm before Matt says: _“You want Daddy to spank you, little boy?”_

Gil’s thumb hovers over the button to end the call, his heart thumping is his chest like he’s just run a six-minute mile.

“Negotiate it kid, you've got too many triggers not to,” Gil whispers. “Don’t let this guy lay hands on you if he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

 _”Will Daddy still fuck me?”_ Malcolm asks, not soft and sing-song but with a bit of challenge in his tone. He’d guessed the kid was a bratty fucking sub, but to hear it—

Gil closes his eyes tight, trying to summon the will to hang up. It’s wrong to listen like this; Malcolm doesn’t know he’s on the line. For half a dozen reasons, it shouldn’t go straight to his dick like this, but it’s the same nasty thrill as the first time he’d found his uncle’s stash of skin magazines, something he knew he shouldn’t be doing.

“Daddy would fuck you so hard, Malcolm,” he breathes, swallowing hard as he puts the phone on speaker and himself on mute. He sets the phone back down on the nightstand and gets back into bed, back propped up against the pillows as he pulls his dick out and licks his hand. “Daddy would make it good for you.”

Malcolm’s date is saying something, but all Gil pays attention to is the smack of skin and the sound of Malcolm’s breath being driven from his lungs. The guy isn’t warming him up, isn’t waiting to see how Malcolm reacts or treasure the little hisses of pleasured pain, and it makes Gil grit his teeth in frustration even as he’s throbbing in his hand.

_“F-fuck, I’m so hard.”_

_“Bet you are. Feel that? How’s that for hard? You want that in you, son?”_

_“God, yes.”_

A wet slicking sound and then a quieter smack, _“Look at that sweet little rosebud winking at me. Daddy’s little boy is a virgin isn’t he?”_

Now there’s a fantasy that Gil’s never had. Sweet and innocent doesn’t hold a candle to someone who knows what they’re doing. 

_“Sir, will you be mad if I’m not? Because….”_

The crack of skin meeting skin is loud as gunfire and Malcolm bites back a yelp. The exhale of his breath is shaky with a moan.

_“You fucking slut. How many cocks have been inside your nasty hole?”_

_“I’m sorry, Daddy. I tried to be a good boy, but I—No, wait, can we do this a little differently?”_ Malcolm asks, breaking scene in a way that Gil’s not sure his date will respond to, but then Matt is saying, _“Sure, honey, what do you want?”_.

Gil’s breath stays lodged in his throat waiting for Malcolm’s reply; if he’s not going to hang up, he ought to take his hand off his dick. He’s close, each stroke on the edge of orgasm, and he hears the slide of a drawer opening and the unmistakable jangle of a pair of handcuffs fished out.

_“Could you use these on me?”_

_“You have a cop fetish?”_

_“Something like that.”_

_“Still want to call me Daddy?”_

_“Yes,”_ Malcolm answers breathily, and then a heartbeat later his voice quavering, _“but can you call me kid instead of son? It_ really _gets me hot.”_

Gil bites his lip as his cock throbs in his hand, and he spills wet over his knuckles.

Fuck.

He hangs up the phone as quickly as he can and pulls off his shirt to clean himself up with it. It’s not a huge mess, but he needs a shower. With the thrill of the moment gone, he feels fucking filthy, a stain left on his skin from violating Malcolm’s privacy like that _and_ the way he’d reacted to Malcolm begging to be called kid.

He throws his shirt towards the hamper with a curse as he stalks into the bathroom.

Not only had he knowingly put Malcolm back into Martin’s path, he’s clearly left his own equally damaging stamp on Malcolm’s psyche. Malcolm making eyes at him is one thing, but to hear it so plainly.... For him to have gone out looking for a good time only to wind up wanting that.

He’s a good kid. He doesn’t deserve to be shackled to some fantasy built up because a patrol officer with dumb luck gave him some candy twenty years ago.

  


* * *

  


_The present_

“We have two very special guests with us tonight,” Archer says. Gil’s former T.O. strolls along the platform, addressing a gathering crowd of well-dressed twenty- and thirty-somethings. “In this corner, Dr. Martin Whitly, who you may know as The Surgeon, one of the deadliest serial killers of the century. And in this corner, the cop who arrested him: Gil Arroyo, one of NYPD‘s finest.”

Archer practically spits out the word finest, and Gil can feel Martin’s scrutiny. He’s trying to work out Gil’s connection to him from context clues in a manner that’s unnervingly similar to Malcolm’s profiling.

“Long time no see,” Gil calls back. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. You could’ve called.”

Archer snaps his fingers like a goddamn Bond villain, and a pair of his henchmen drag a hooded figure up towards the edge of the platform. Gil feels Martin react at the same time, both of them fixated on a man they immediately recognize as Malcolm. He has on a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt, and the tremor in Malcolm’s hand is echoing all the way up to his elbow.

“Look at the two of them go,” Archer says. “Normally, we all pitch in and it’s a bag of cash for the winner, but keep your money tonight my friends, I’ve brought a very special prize to motivate these two fighters.”

Gil had known Owen Shannon hadn’t been the only cop to hold a grudge against him, but Gil hadn’t exactly kept tabs. Archer must’ve gone into corrections, he realizes, and those bodies they’d found… he’s been running some kind of fucked up underground colosseum. Gil scowls and takes a better look at the crowd. He can see it in their faces—these six-figure assholes who’ve watched Fight Club too many times and take krav maga classes but can’t actually muster up the balls to bloody their own hands.

And it’s no surprise to him that Archer would stoop this low. He’d been dirty. Not grease-the-paperwork or occasionally-look-the-other-way dirty; he’d been on the take, forging witness statements, assaulting women. Gil had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar and dug up enough evidence that he couldn’t weasel out of it when Gil had turned him in.

He’d been as foolhardy as Malcolm back then, thinking he wouldn’t pay a price for breaking the blue wall. He didn’t get kicked off the force, but oh, he’d been left for the wolves.

Being a rookie patrol officer on the Upper East Side isn’t as cushy a gig as it sounds, especially for a cop that isn't white: you have to deal with an endless parade of garbage calls and it’s only a matter of time before you piss off someone who knows the commissioner. If you don’t bootlick the society ladies well enough, or if you say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person… it’s the easiest way to get rid of a cop with no prior black marks on his record.

He’d lasted longer than anyone expected him to, even if he’d privately thought he’d be on the beat forever. And then Malcolm had made that fateful phone call, and both their lives had turned inside out.

“Shall we get a better look at the goods, fellas?” Archer asks. He tugs Malcolm’s hood off and Malcolm blinks and shakes his head, gaze narrowing in on Gil before jumping briefly to Martin. His own tie has been stuffed into his mouth and tied around his head in a makeshift gag. The silk is dark with spittle where it digs into his cheeks. Archer produces a knife and flicks it open.

In Gil’s peripheral, Martin’s gone still, attention fixed like a snake waiting to strike. Gil struggles against the duct tape binding his wrists as he watches Archer loom behind Malcolm. The knife rips through the shirt, and Malcolm’s whole body goes tense as Archer strips it down off his arms to leave him bare-chested.

“Don’t know if you know this, Whitly, but Arroyo there? He likes dick as much as he likes pussy, and I bet he’s had an eye on your boy for a while now. In fact, we snagged and bagged him right outside Malcolm’s apartment, didn’t we?”

Malcolm’s chest rises and falls with shallow, anxious breaths and his pale skin is dusted with marks. Most of those bruises and angry red scratches Gil suspects were ones that Malcolm had welcomed. There’s a question in the kid’s eyes—maybe he’d seen the call, knew Gil had been listening in for a while—and Gil aches to tell him that he’d gone there to confess, to apologize. He’d waited around for Malcolm’s date to leave to give him some time, and he should've noticed the van, but he’d been too preoccupied with Malcolm’s silhouette at the half-moon window. The way he’d hugged his arms around himself and shivered so hard that even from the street, Gil could see it.

Archer gives Malcolm’s jaw a little pat and produces a zip tie to bind Malcolm’s arms. “Word is, him and his wife used to pick up hot young things together. Is that ‘cause you couldn't satisfy her on your own, Gil? Or are you a closet case and Jackie—God rest her soul—was she just a beard?”

Malcolm’s shivering again, and with the slightly dazed look in his eye, it’s more than just a simple panic attack. He’d never come up from subdrop, Gil realizes. He’d dropped and that asshole Matt probably gave him a thank you and little to nothing else. And now here he is, still fighting his way back from that while dealing with the fear of seeing two men he cares for about to go for one another’s throats.

“Malcolm, listen to me. Dani and JT are going to be here any minute. You know how hard they’ve been working this case. They’re on shift. They’ll find us.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Archer says with a laugh. 

“So, let me get this straight. All I need to do in front of all these fine folks assembled here tonight is kill the Lieutenant?” Martin asks. “And then what, I’m free to go with my boy?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Archer, he’s a serial killer. You can’t do this.”

“He’s been stuck in a mental hospital for twenty years. Don’t think you can take him down again in a fair fight? If I remember correctly, you used to brag about being pretty good in the ring.”

“I’ll fight,” Martin says. “Let me loose… and if you want a real show, give me that knife.”

An excited murmuring ripples through the crowd. 

“No weapons,” Archer says. “This is mano y mano. Wits and fists.”

Gil locks eyes with Malcolm as Archer passes the knife to one of his goons. The guy hops off the platform and approaches Gil as Archer pulls a gun on Malcolm, aiming center mass. If Gil could be certain Malcolm was all there right now, he would roll the dice, trusting Malcolm to be fast enough to react and get that gun, but there’s no margin of error so he holds still as the goon’s knife saws through the tape.

When it gives with a snap, he shakes his arms out, fingers flexing to get the blood flowing again as he watches Martin get cut loose. The layers of duct tape still cling to the cuffs of his turtleneck, and Gil leaves them in place as he hastily reaches under the hem to loosen his undershirt and force a hole in the thin tee. He rips the hole wider to tear off a long strip from the hem. He winds it between his knuckles in a makeshift wrap as Martin waits calmly for the man who’d freed him to retreat off the tracks.

“You know, Gil, I’ve thought a lot about killing you over the years,” Martin says, rubbing the life back into his hands as he takes a slow step forward. He strips the remaining tape clumped to his wrists and drops the pieces to the dirt before he gestures at the platform. “Not precisely like this, of course. I have to say, the audience is a welcome surprise.”

Gil doesn’t waste his breath, he scans the ground for advantages and disadvantages and puts his hands up. There’s detritus everywhere, piles of dirt obscuring the tracks and trash piled in the corners. Light catches on bits of broken glass, but none of them are large enough to be worth making a move for.

“Close your eyes, my boy. No need for you to see this,” Martin calls out. He doesn’t take a fighting stance, but Gil doesn’t dare underestimate him. 

“He’s right,” Gil says. “Kid, you close your eyes, and you repeat to yourself that thing you told me was on your card this morning: I am a problem-solver and focus on finding the best solutions.”

Gil keeps his attention on Martin and prays his words are reaching Malcolm enough to level him out. He starts to circle as Martin stoops down and gathers up a handful of dirt mid-step. It bleeds from between his fingers as he continues his slow approach, and Gil scowls. Of course he’d fight dirty from the start.

He ducks into his elbow when Martin tosses it and rushes him. The grit pelts against his arm and face, and he avoids getting any in his eyes, but by the time he recovers, Martin is driving a shoulder into his chest to tackle him to the ground. It works. Gil loses his footing, landing hard on his ass, pain shooting up his spine, but he’s quick to roll away and get back up—faster than Martin—and even if he’s left staggering, Gil manages to give him a taste of his own medicine and kick dirt straight in Martin’s face.

Martin roars in anger and stumbles back, giving himself plenty of room to blink it away and bring his arms up to mirror Gil’s. He’s obviously unaccustomed to a fist fight, but he’s got a natural stance that says he knows how to balance his weight, and with his bulk, he’s not going to be easy to take down.

Gil comes in close with a hard jab that Martin blocks with his forearms before quickly retreating out of range. Usually the novice in a street fight comes out swinging wildly, throwing haymakers that leave them open or off-balance, but Martin plays it smart. He takes a few hits including one that bloodies his lip, but he stays mostly out of reach, trying to tell how quickly Gil will tire, trying to learn his limits.

“Is it true?” Martin asks him, retreating again until he’s far enough away to drop the stance. He licks the blood from his lip and combs his fingers through his beard. “Are you—Are you and Malcolm a thing? An _item?_ He always was a daddy’s boy, but be honest with me now because I think I deserve to know: Are you fucking my son, Lieutenant Arroyo?”

“Of course not,” Gil snaps, regretting it the moment the words leave his lips.

Martin’s eyes flash, and his grin is the dark mirror of Malcolm’s joy when he encounters something novel and fascinating. “Oh, no, you’ve never laid a hand on him. I can see that now. But that look in your eye… you want to, isn’t that right? You want to put your filthy hands on my little boy. He was _eleven_ when you came to our house. _My_ house.”

“Shut your fucking mouth and fight me, Whitly,” Gil says. He can feel all their eyes on him, those bloodthirsty yuppies up there. All of them beginning to wonder if he’s the real monster, and he doesn’t blame them. How can he? Martin’s right. Malcolm was a little boy who’d looked up to him, and so what if he’d never thought of Malcolm as his son, that doesn’t make it right, the things he wants now. He’s been an influence in Malcolm’s life as much as Martin has. Maybe not always a good one even though he’d tried his damnedest.

This time when Gil gets close enough to take a swing, Martin manages to duck it and slam a palm to the middle of his chest. He might not be as untrained as he seems, Gil thinks, a sickening wave of pain radiating outward from the blow.

“There are three very vulnerable areas in a fist fight,” Martin says loudly. Raising his voice for both the crowd and for Malcolm. “The sternum, where a hard enough strike can cause a man to go into cardiac arrest. The windpipe, where a good jab can collapse that puppy and leave even a healthy man choking to death. And the nose. All that cartilage, easily driven up past the nasal cavity and into the cranium. Now that one, you can survive, but the damage to the frontal lobe....” He clucks his tongue.

Gil scowls and keeps his fists up. He can feel his temper rising, and it’s precisely what Martin wants. He can’t afford to get sloppy.

“What’s that?” Archer is saying, and Gil doesn’t dare take his eyes away from Martin. He must have pulled the gag away from Malcolm’s mouth though, because the kid’s strangled, “If either of them die, I’m going to kill you,” is met with snickering laughter.

Martin and Gil are the only ones who seem unamused.

“That’s my boy,” Martin whispers, and Gil sees red.

All that careful control vanishes and he launches himself at Martin, comes in fast enough that Martin doesn’t have time to dodge and they go tumbling to the ground again. Gil comes out on top and Martin’s hand claws to his throat, dimming his vision briefly before Gil breaks the hold and pops him square in the nose. He keeps hitting, flesh like dough under his knuckles and blood starting to slacken the blows.

Martin doesn’t give up trying to throw him off, and then there’s a crack, a flash of white, and he kicks Gil away. Blinking away the pain, Gil staggers back to his feet, staying in a low crouch as the split in his vision comes back into focus and he sees that Martin has found a cracked two-by-four in the dirt and is holding it like a club.

He’s hurt. Gil’s loosened a couple of his teeth, broken his nose, and the fall has left him limping.

With range at his advantage, though….

Gil shakes his head and brings his hands back up. There’s a split at his scalp. Blood streams down over his left eye too quickly to wipe away.

“Well, that’s not fair,” Archer says. “But since we’re bringing weapons into the mix, have at it, fellas.”

Something thuds into the dirt between them, and with one eye shut, Gil can’t track it fast enough. Martin lunges for it, and his grin when he tosses away the scrap of wood and unfolds the blade is just as sharp and deadly.

“Now the real fun begins,” he says, and advances.

Gil dodges the first few attempts Martin makes, but with his depth perception off, the next slash strikes him across the chest. The knit of his shirt stops it from slicing too deeply, but a half-second later his brain catches up to the signals and his nerves scream with pain. He hisses and grits his teeth.

“If you think that hurts, you’re in for a surprise,” Martin says. He gestures with the knife, a finger pressed against the blade like it’s a scalpel. His beard is matted with blood now, pink stained between his teeth when his lip curls back in a sneer. “Just imagine what it’ll be like when you’re looking at your own organs.”

Reflexively, Gil brings his arm up to block a downward slash, and it’s only the tape still clinging to his wrists that keeps the blade from carving a chunk out of his flesh. Gil kicks out and forces Martin off-balance with a follow-up right hook that connects with his jaw, and as they’re staggering apart again, a fresh hurt is blossoming on his thigh, and he’s dimly aware that there’s a commotion on the platform, someone howling in pain.

“You little fuck!” Archer shouts.

Gil’s trying to wipe the blood out of his eye when Malcolm comes tumbling off the edge of the platform to land on the dirt-covered tracks with a heavy thud.

It stalls Martin long enough that Gil manages to put a little more distance between them. He glances down to see the wound cut across the outside of his leg, deep enough that he’ll need stitches if he gets out of this alive.

“Don’t,” Malcolm cries, struggling to get to his knees and wincing as he raises his arms up behind him to break the zip tie. He stumbles between them and thrusts his arms out, putting himself directly in front of Gil. “Dad, stop.”

“That’s not how this game works, son,” Martin says. He licks his lip and his grip on the knife tightens. He doesn’t take his eyes off Gil.

“Kill them both if you want to, Whitly,” Archer shouts. Gil risks a glance at where he stands at the edge of the platform. The crowd has thinned down to under a dozen men. The hardcore sickos.

“Oh, I could never hurt my boy.”

Archer’s gun is aimed again at Malcolm, and if he’s kept up at the range, Gil knows he’s a good shot, even on a moving target.

“Well, someone’s not leaving here alive. And if it’s not one of you, it’s going to be him. Your closure rate is going to drop again without your pet profiler, won’t it, Arroyo?”

Martin looks away from Gil, posture dropping the aggressive stance to turn a beatific gaze on his son. “Malcolm, this is how it is, one of us has to die,” Martin says, his expression coached in false pity. “You there, M.C., whatever your name is, you should probably aim that gun at the Lieutenant. My boy here, unfortunately, doesn’t value his own safety as much as I’d like him to.”

After a half-second of deliberation, Archer trains the weapon on Gil. “Your choice, fellas.”

“But it doesn’t have to be. I think the choice is really up to you, Malcolm,” Martin says. He flips the knife around and holds the hilt out to Malcolm with a soft smile.

Malcolm’s gaze jumps up to Archer, who says, “Take it.”

Behind him, a few more of the assembled trickle away, less interested in what’s playing out if it doesn’t involve martial combat.

“It’s okay, kid,” Gil tells Malcolm. “Take the knife.”

Malcolm’s trembling fingers close around the hilt.

“Now, we both know you’re not really going to kill your own dad,” Martin says. He taps at his chest where the scars from the ice pick and the surgery lie hidden. “Not when you so carefully saved my life the last time a revenge-thirsty madman was hell-bent on putting me in the ground.”

“I—,” Malcolm inhales deeply and looks down at the blade. His shoulders quiver.

“Have you thought it through: what happens if you kill me? No matter what, you’ll never work again. More likely you’ll be locked away just like I was with only your imagination to keep you company, and from what I hear,” Martin pauses briefly to chuckle softly, “those night terrors are only getting worse.

“And think of all we can do together, you and I; the advancements to medical science we could uncover side-by-side. That’s the sort of working relationship I could never have with a man like John Watkins. The death of a few could save hundreds— _thousands_ —of lives. We Whitlys could accomplish true greatness.”

Gil can see the panic cresting in Malcolm, his breathing going quick and shallow again.

“Breathe, Malcolm,” Gil says. “You’re a problem-solver and you focus on finding the best solutions.”

“I’m a problem-solver and I focus on finding the best solutions,” Malcolm whispers. He repeats it again before his voice cracks. “Gil, I can’t—”

There’s the sharp pop of gunfire, and Gil collapses.

His shoulder whips back and his knee hits the dirt. He clutches at his arm. The round is lodged there; he can feel it burning in the flesh of his bicep as blood seeps out between his fingers. Malcolm spins around wide-eyed, his fingers white-knuckled on the hilt of the knife, and just behind him, Martin watches with the patience of a predator.

“Kid, I want you to listen very carefully to me,” Gil says. He lifts his fingers briefly away from the wound to gauge how quickly he’s losing blood. It’s bad, but it’s not as bad as it could be. Using his teeth, he rips away a piece of the duct tape still clinging to his wrist and widens the hole in his sleeve to fumble the makeshift bandage over the wound as he continues to hold Malcolm’s gaze. It sticks well enough, but the hurt spreads like flame through his arm. “I don’t want anyone to die either, but there’s no runner-up prize here. There’s no silver medal to win.”

Gil glances meaningfully at the knife as he adds another piece of tape to his arm and forces himself back up to standing. “You’re the one who has to make the call, but you and I both know that you can’t kill Martin. Your dad’s right, your work is too important to you, and you’re—you’re too important to me,” he says, and wipes blood off his hand before giving Malcolm’s cheek a fond brief touch. “So, I’m going to trust you to do what’s right, champ.”

There’s a brief furrow in Malcolm’s brow, and then he’s sliding his fingers over the blade of the knife and drawing in a deep steadying breath. He gnaws on his lip and the air around them feels thick like a storm’s gathering. Gil nods reassuringly at Malcolm before edging past him to face Martin again.

His wounded arm hangs limp, and he can feel Martin sizing him up and calculating his weaknesses. Gil steels himself to keep fighting if Malcolm can’t make a move. Meanwhile, Archer is sneering down his nose, triumphant. He has a clean shot if he wants to take it, but so does Malcolm, and the kid says, “I can solve this problem. I can find the best solution,” from behind him as he braces a hand on Gil’s shoulder.

The knife whooshes past Gil, flashing through the air to strike Archer low in the guts. Gil ducks reflexively as another shot pops off, but he hears the ricochet off the walls and then the clatter of the gun hitting the platform. Malcolm runs for it, pulling himself back up off the tracks as Martin lunges forward with an enraged snarl.

Gil cries out as Martin’s hand clamps to his arm, and the pain goes from a six to a sixty. His nerves overload, a lightning crack of impossible white heat shooting through him. He fights back on reflex alone, but Martin takes his legs out from under him, and he goes crashing down again, flat on his back, his shoulder blade slamming against the metal of the track. Martin drops down to straddle his legs, thumb digging cruelly into the gash there and ripping a harsh scream out of his throat.

“Stop!” 

Martin doesn’t listen, and Gil starts to hear only white noise until another gunshot rings out and sends a puff of dirt up a few feet away from them. He gasps for breath when Martin eases up and twists away from the hurt flaring in his shoulder to catch sight of Malcolm standing in Archer’s place with the gun pressed to his own head.

Even in the stale rank air, he can smell the char of Malcolm’s flesh where the muzzle sears against his skin. Archer is crumpled at his feet, hands cupped around the protruding hilt of the knife.

“Move away from Gil. Right now. Please,” he says, voice shifting from a demand to a plea. When Martin doesn’t comply fast enough, Malcolm spreads a smile even as his brows pull tight together and his eyes glisten. The gun grinds against his temple. “You were right, Dad. I don’t put as much value on my own well-being as much as I should. And now I’m the one with the finger on the trigger.”

It’s like a switch flips in Martin. He ignores Gil completely, staggering back, his focus now entirely on Malcolm. “Son, I’m doing as you’ve asked. Please put down the gun.”

“I will, after you help Gil get back up here and put these on.” Malcolm nudges a scatter of fallen zip ties with the toe of his shoe.

“You’re going to arrest me and take me back to Claremont?” Martin asks, affronted. He blinks away the question, expression swiftly free of perturbation again. “Of course you are. After all, I was innocent in all this; a mere pawn in that man’s twisted little game.”

He turns to Gil and nods towards the ladder at the end of the platform, making a little shooing gesture when Gil doesn’t immediately get up and move towards it. Gil stamps down the anger still seething in him as he manages to stand and limp across the tracks.

He’s making his way slowly up the rungs when Dani’s voice echoes through the station, and Gil is free to shake off Martin’s “help” when, along with a couple unis, JT appears and lends an arm to pull him up and find his footing.

“Looks like we got here just in time. This shit’s all over the internet. You all right, boss?” he asks.

Gil nods. “I’ll live,” he says, glancing over to where Archer is being cuffed and an officer is on the radio calling for medical. Dani has the gun from Malcolm, and she’s pulling him aside. 

“Hello to the cavalry,” Martin crows, immediately raising his arms as he steps off the ladder.

“Cuff him,” Gil tells the uniformed officers, then turns to JT to ensure that Malcolm doesn’t waive medical attention. “If our boy doesn’t want to listen, you tell him the ambulance with me in it isn’t leaving without him.”


	2. just run with it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica sees the video, Malcolm takes Gil home and invites himself in.
> 
> This is Gil's crumbling resolve.

_Later, at the hospital_

Recovering from surgery to remove the bullet and after a morning follow-up with the physician, Gil finds himself waiting to be discharged and staring down a week of bed rest. God only knows how many PT appointments are waiting for him down the line to address the damage. He’s riding a desk enough as it is.

He vaguely remembers coming out of the anaesthesia to find Malcolm waiting around, taking his hand and saying something before the staff ushered him out. He’s not here now, and Gil hopes he went home. Although, having been snatched out of there, maybe home doesn’t feel that safe.

A knock sounds at the door, and he expects the kid to pop his head in like he’s been summoned, but it’s Jessica. And she doesn’t look thrilled.

“Jess,” he says, trying to sit a little more upright. “You didn’t—”

“Don’t,” she snaps, cutting him off. He frowns as she pulls her phone out of her purse, but when he hears the sound from the video she thrusts in his face, he understands.

_“Are you fucking my son, Lieutenant Arroyo?”_

Jessica drops the phone onto the blanket pulled over his lap. As the shaky footage plays out, she watches his face.

 _”But that look in your eye… you want to, isn’t that right? You want to put your filthy hands on my little boy. He was_ eleven _when you—”_

The video ends, and Gil gathers up her phone with his good right hand and passes it back to her wordlessly. His guts twist into a queasy knot as he waits for her to ask the question.

“Martin _lies_ and he _lies_ , but somehow I can’t help but wonder if he’s right,” she says, her perfectly painted lip curling away from her teeth as she forces the words out. Her lashes flutter—so like Malcolm—and she looks briefly up at the ceiling before her gaze cuts back into him. “Tell me it isn’t true, Gil. I know that Malcolm, he’s… attached to you, and you spent so much time with him after his father was arrested. All those late nights, oh, God, I can’t even bear to think about it.”

She covers her mouth and recoils as Gil reaches for her. 

“It’s not like that,” he insists. “It was never like that. I swear to you to Jessica.”

Her brow knits together. “But is it like that now?”

He exhales softly. Lying to her isn’t an option. “Jess, I…. These past few months, I might have developed some feelings for Malcolm that are less than professional. But I’ve never acted on them. I’d never take advantage of him. Never.”

“He thinks of you like a _father_ ,” she says, no longer able to look him directly in the eye.

Not exactly, he thinks, but there’s no way he can explain that without digging his own grave deeper.

“I don’t know what happened, and it doesn’t sit well with me, either. It keeps me up at night, but you know how fragile he is. If I push him away now....”

The disgusted sound she makes as she thrusts her phone back into her purse and turns away from him burns like acid. “My son is going to do what he wants, but I never want to see you again,” she says, reaching for the door.

It swings inward, and she startles.

“Mother!” Malcolm says, his expression going from surprise to concern between blinks. He’s holding a cup of coffee in each hand, and his arm is looped through a plastic bag Gil recognizes from his stash in the kitchen. The kid must’ve used his spare key to fetch him a change of clothes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she replies, patting him on the chest and throwing one last dagger-filled look at Gil. “Have your little chat with the Lieutenant, and you and I will talk later.”

Malcolm’s head tips a little further to the side quizzically as she breezes out leaving only the faint floral scent of her perfume behind. He hesitates for a brief moment before letting the door swing shut.

“What was that all about?” he asks, nudging the rolling table at Gil’s bedside with his hip before sliding one of the cups onto it. He holds up the bag and leaves it on the seat of the visitor’s chair.

“Nothing,” Gil answers reflexively.

“That didn’t seem like nothing,” Malcolm remarks. He sips at his coffee, giving Gil a minute to elaborate. When Gil keeps his trap shut, Malcolm nudges the other cup towards him slightly. “Black, two sugars. Nurse said it was fine, and it looks like I’m your official escort home if you want to get discharged today.”

“I was planning to call my brother,” Gil says. Though, since Vivi went back to work last month, that means Dennis probably has the kids, and the littlest is such a handful. Also, then word will get to their sister, and it’ll be a fresh excuse for a month of visits and group-texts and endless variations of ‘when are you going to retire, your job is so dangerous’ and ‘it’s been years, Gil, I have a friend who knows how to cook’.

“Well, I have the free time and the car service, but if you’d rather be with family I understand,” Malcolm says.

Maybe it’s better to just take this opportunity to set things straight with Malcolm. Lay out some clear boundaries and find a way to move past the urge that makes every reassuring touch he lands on him yearn to turn into a caress.

“No, it’s fine, they can fuss over me later. Thanks, city boy,” Gil says, accepting both the offer and the coffee. 

It’s another hour before he’s cleared, then ten more minutes in the waiting room, forced to keep his butt in a wheelchair even though his leg can hold the weight—the stitches and the dressing have left his thigh stiff and aching, but he’d made it to the bathroom on his own just fine. He blows out a sigh of relief when he finally makes it into the backseat of the town car.

Malcolm slides in next to him with a smile. “You’ll be better before you know it.”

“Thanks, kid.”

During the drive, Malcolm pipes up here and there with random thoughts or observations along with some updates that Edrisa’s passed along to him. She must be so pleased that, in addition to the video, it was her encyclopedic knowledge of everything surrounding Martin’s case—Gil’s record, included—that led to the detectives figuring out who had taken them.

Malcolm is trying hard to start up idle small talk, but Gil finds himself responding with mostly one-word answers, too caught up in the dilemma of what to say when they arrive home. Malcolm will probably insist on walking him up all the way to the door and making sure he’s settled, and then it’ll be there, in the shadow of Jackie’s photo, that he’s going to have to break the kid’s heart. How can he possibly do it? Not only will he have to admit to Malcolm that Martin was right, that yes, he does think about him that way, but to get Malcolm’s hopes up only to crush them a moment later?

Fuck.

He can feel Malcolm’s scrutiny as his mood turns darker and darker, as the sourness in his stomach rises to burn the back of his throat. It only gets worse as he’s hobbling up the steps of his third-story walkup. Malcolm, to his credit, doesn’t hover and try to help, he simply slows his pace to match.

When they make it to the front door and Gil turns the locks, Malcolm’s energy ramps up, and the moment the door swings open, Gil realizes why. Smack dab next to his couch is Sunshine’s cage. So, he’d done a little more than just drop by to pick up a change of clothes. Sunshine chirrups excitedly and bobs her head as he steps across the threshold, and Malcolm scoots past him with a nervous, shit-eating grin.

“I thought it was for the best,” he explains, animated and wide-eyed, “me staying with you for a few days. I can lend a hand, or help you in the kitchen. It’ll be… just like when I was in college.”

“Take your bird and go home, kid, I’ll be fine,” Gil says, shaking his head. “My arm in a sling and a little limp isn’t going to slow me down much.”

Malcolm doesn’t look deterred as he offers a few other benefits of the arrangement, including that they’re changing the locks and installing some extra security in his building, so he could also use a place to stay. “Being under my mother’s roof again for more than a few hours is out of the question, and I could take a room at The Plaza, but last time there were complaints about the screaming, so—”

“Okay,” Gil says, crumbling like a sand castle in a hurricane. “You can stay.”

“Really? Great!” Malcolm claps his hands together. “I didn’t want to presume, so I haven’t unpacked my restraints, but I’ll go do that.”

“Didn’t want to presume, my ass…” Gil mutters under his breath and goes to poke a finger through the bars of Sunshine’s cage to say hello. She hops over to lightly tap her beak against him and makes a happy little clicking chirp.

To be so carefree, he thinks, blowing Sunshine a kiss.

  


* * *

  


The guilt eats at Gil throughout the day, and he doesn’t have much to keep his mind from drifting back, again and again, to worrying how in the hell he’s going to tell Malcolm the truth. To think that this is the sort of thing the kid deals with around the clock—his mind refusing to shut off and stay away from the dark corners that make him miserable. 

Speaking of miserable, while Malcolm seems to attribute his mood to the order for bed rest, which is a small balm, the way the kid moves around his apartment is the opposite of helpful. Gil can’t help thinking back to when Malcolm was in college, how every few months he’d show up on the doorstep and make Jackie’s day. He’d brighten their lives for a couple days, and sure, sometimes he’d stay out late and Gil could tell he was getting himself into trouble, but he was so different than that solemn, scared kid who’d ask him endless questions on stakeouts.

But college is also when the way Malcolm looked at him started to really change, started to turn longing and hungry. All bitten lips and furtive glances. 

He and Jackie had laughed about it in hushed tones, curled facing one another in bed while Malcolm crashed in the guest room on the other side of the wall. He can picture her impish smile dimpling her cheeks as she’d teased him. _That boy must be getting laid left and right, and still he wants to cliiiimb you like a tree. He’s got it bad for you, Daddy._

And now, of course, Daddy has it bad for him.

Gil sighs as he flips open the cabinets and pulls out a pair of plates to slide onto the counter. Malcolm had looked almost disappointed that he was calling for takeout—maybe today food isn’t quite the enemy it usually is. His left arm is a constant, throbbing hurt, and he rolls his eyes at the kid’s sidelong look. Malcolm perches on one of the stools opposite and starts unloading the bags as Gil fishes out a set of silverware.

“Thanks for letting me and Sunshine move in for a few days,” Malcolm says, popping open the containers. “Honestly, I think part of me just didn’t want to be alone.”

“The sanctity of your home was violated, it’s normal. You know that,” Gil says, failing to serve himself as easily as he’d set the table. He thanks Malcolm when the kid takes over and fills his plate. Violated twice over, Gil thinks privately as he notices the way Malcolm reacts to being thanked and remembers the sounds he’d made when that guy, Matt, had spanked him. A little flush of anger raises Gil’s blood pressure as he remembers how out of it Malcolm had been, not given enough aftercare. Left so raw and vulnerable when Archer had made his move and grabbed them both.

“At least it’s something new for me to talk about in therapy,” Malcolm jokes between bites.

“Hey, kid,” Gil says, lowering his fork to reach over and put a hand on Malcolm’s neck. It feels newly wrong, the way Malcolm leans into it, charged with an energy that’s more than just welcoming the reassurance. Gil ignores the conflicted churning in his gut to give Malcolm a gentle squeeze and say, “I didn’t get a chance to say thank you for saving my life. Again.”

Malcolm swallows and ducks his head, and Gil lets his hand slip down his back to give it a vigorous rub. He gives Malcolm a final—hopefully platonic—pat and picks up his fork again.

“So, he was your partner once? Archer. Edrisa filled me in.”

“Training officer. Fresh out of the academy and I got saddled with a rotten apple,” Gil says ruefully. “Thought I’d had the worst kind of luck, but if that had shaken out any other way, I would’ve never worked the Upper East Side.”

Malcolm pushes the food around on his plate more than he eats it. He looks preoccupied.

“Something on your mind, kid?”

“It’s nothing,” Malcolm insists. 

Gil doesn’t push it.

After dinner, Malcolm helps with cleanup then squirrels himself away in the guest room with Sunshine.

Gil makes himself as comfortable as possible on the couch and flips on the local news. He dozes a bit, stirring when Malcolm’s door opens. He cranes his neck to watch the kid tuck Sunshine back in her cage.

“Sorry it’s such a mess in there; more storage than guests these days,” Gil says. He glances at the bundle under Malcolm’s arm. “If you’re going to shower, spare towels are still in the same spot.”

“I am, but do you have a shirt I can borrow to sleep in? I didn’t pack a spare, and Sunshine had a little accident. Or, I could do laundry. I think. How hard can that be?”

Gil huffs a laugh and gestures towards his bedroom. “Don’t sweat it, kid. Second drawer from the top; pick whatever you want.”

“Thanks, Gil,” Malcolm says, disappearing again.

When he emerges from his shower, hair slicked back and still damp, Gil averts his eyes before Malcolm catches him looking. The glimpse was enough, however, to leave his throat dry and his jeans a little more snug. He’d always loved it when Jackie wore his clothes—seeing the way his shirts hung to the knee on her and the neckline dragged down—and it’s not much different with Malcolm. The kid is drowning in his ratty old Yankees’ championship tee, his collarbones and the slope of one hickey-covered shoulder exposed.

Padding quietly across the room, Malcolm says, “I’m going to make some tea. Do you want a cup?” 

“I’d love one,” Gil replies, leveraging himself up off the low cushions for his own bathroom break. When he returns, there’s a mug waiting for him on the coffee table, a thin curl of steam rising into the air, and Malcolm has made himself comfortable on the other end of the couch with his legs crossed, feet bare.

It’s difficult for Gil to act natural and settle back in. He does his level best and hopes Malcolm keeps his damn profiling to himself as he stretches his good arm out again over the back of the couch. 

The late show host is monologuing, and it’s hard for Gil to laugh at all the right beats when he’s hyper-aware of the distance between himself and Malcolm. His thumb is so close to the nape of the kid’s neck. It’d take next to nothing to brush against those soft fine hairs, slip his fingers along the neck of the shirt hanging loose on Malcolm’s slender frame. To slide his hand in and rub along his skin and pull him close—pull him down and ask if the kid wants a taste of Daddy’s cock.

Gil closes his eyes briefly to get his brain back on track. Malcolm is busy on his phone, smiling occasionally as he messages back and forth with someone.

“Second date?” Gill asks.

“Hm?”

“Your new friend in finance, Matt. Going on a second date? Or a first date, maybe?”

Malcolm has the decency to turn a little pink. “No, it’s Dani, she’s just checking in on, well, both of us, actually.”

When Malcolm tucks his phone away under his leg and sits up straight, it brings his back into contact with Gil’s hand. An electric current travels all the way through Gil’s body to his dick, and he can’t resist turning his palm to rest solidly against the worn fabric of the tee.

He pretends as best he can that he doesn’t recognize how the kid’s breathing pattern changes. Or that Malcolm gathers his hands in his lap when Gil makes idle circles with his thumb against the jut of Malcolm’s shoulder blade. Gil laughs along to the pithy story the talk show guest is telling, and in the back of his mind, all he can really think about is how fucking hard Malcolm is gonna come the minute he’s alone in his room again.

How he’ll probably have his dick out and his palm wet the instant the door is shut—same as Gil. Wringing one out and thinking about Daddy giving it hard to his boy.

Reluctantly, Gil drags his mind out of the gutter and forces himself to focus entirely on the television even if he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the guests. He’s playing with fire, and it’s both of them that will get burned if Malcolm catches on. He uses finishing off his tea as an excuse to pull his hand away.

He doesn’t ever really stop thinking about Malcolm sitting so close and dressed in his shirt, but he does miss the point when eventually, Malcolm, who had been teetering on the edge for a while, finally slips into actual sleep. In the middle of the Late Late Show, the kid lists towards him, shifting his head unconsciously to pillow against Gil’s shoulder.

Gil shuts his eyes and prays. He’s never been a particularly virtuous man in his own estimation, but the familiar scent of his own shampoo rising from Malcolm’s hair is testing him in ways he’d never imagined. Hating himself for it, he eases his arm free and moves it slowly to curl around Malcolm and let the kid cuddle closer. 

He fits himself against Gil’s side, breath deepening again swiftly, and after long minutes, Gil can’t resist tucking a few stray bits of hair behind the kid’s ear.

_If only…._

He carries that thought through to a dozen different outcomes until eventually Malcolm twitches violently. Gil firms his hold reflexively, ready to shake him awake and pull him out of whatever nightmare has taken hold, but then Malcolm’s mouth parts on a quiet moan and he mumbles, _“Yes, Daddy, please,_ ” as his arm unfolds to find Gil’s chest and slide across it.

Gil’s fingers in the sling curl, triggering a fresh hurt at the dressing on his shoulder, but the pain is dwarfed by the sizzling thrill of Malcolm nuzzling against him, face burrowing into the curve of his underarm and spine curving to push his ass against the back of the cushions.

 _“Y-yes—do it. Do it please,”_ he stutters softly, his fingers spasming where they rest loosely curled near the strap of the sling crossing Gil’s pecs. _“Please... Please touch me, Daddy. Please, Gil.”_

Christ. Gil scrapes his teeth over his lip and bites back the low hungry sound building in his throat. He glances down at the feeble twitching of Malcolm’s hand, echoes maybe of grasping at something in his dream. _Grasping for him._

“Bright,” Gil says, clearing his throat before trying again and giving him a little jostling shake.

Malcolm moves, but it’s not to get up; his hips roll and his hand slides down, and by the ease with which his hand finds Gil’s trapped cock, he’d almost think the kid was faking it. He’s seen this enough times with Malcolm’s night terrors, though, to know it’s just a manifestation of his dreams, a good one this time, at least. He grits his teeth as a shot of pleasure goes through him at the squeeze of Malcolm’s hand and another hungry moan of, “ _Daddy_.”

“Malcolm,” Gil says forcibly, giving him a much harder shake, “wake up. You need to wake up.”

The kid jerks bodily and then goes stock still, his muscles turned to steel. He lifts his head and then yanks his hand away from Gil like he’s touched a hot stove, freezing again in place as he stares wide-eyed, the realization of what’s just happened catches up with him.

“Oh my god,” he whispers, tongue darting out to wet his lips in a panic before stammering, “Gil, I—I was talking in my sleep wasn’t I…,” and then trailing off as his brow furrows. He licks his lip again more slowly, teeth scraping it clean a second later. He’s clearly clocked the erection straining in Gil’s pants and slowly lifts his eyes, his breath caught and lashes quivering.

“You were, and other things,” Gil says trying to laugh it off. He makes as if to get up, but Malcolm’s hand presses flat to the center of his chest.

“Wait,” he says, studying Gil’s face carefully, “you liked what you heard.”

Gil rescues his arm and tries to lift Malcolm’s hand off of him, but Malcolm isn’t budging. “Kid, it doesn’t matter what I heard or whether or not I liked it.”

“I disagree. It matters a great deal. And as much as I appreciate the nickname—honestly, more than you know—calling me kid right now is a touch infantilizing,” Malcolm says, and Gil spots the flicker in his eye that says he’s started tracking Gil’s body language.

“I tried to wake you. Dirty dreams happen, they don’t mean anything.” Gil shifts again, looking to scoot forward and escape this whole damn conversation.

“My dreams are often a little more meaningful,” Malcolm says, though he sounds distracted as he measures Gil’s tone and the various stress indicators that must be blaring like an alarm. “But let’s set that aside. You’re trying very hard to minimize the situation. That’s a classic tactic, you know, when someone is dealing with overwhelming feelings of guilt or experiencing the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. Which is it?”

Malcolm’s hand in the middle of Gil’s chest presses more firmly, measures the beat of his heart thumping beneath it. Malcolm’s found a thread to tug at and follow, but if he does it’ll unravel everything. Gil’s body is flush with adrenaline and nerves.

“It’s both, isn’t it. Ah, that’s also why you called me kid: you’re trying to remind yourself of how we met because you can’t reconcile your current feelings for me with our shared history. But this isn’t new to you, you’ve been dealing with this for a while now. Weeks? No. Months? My father was _right_ about you wanting to sleep with me. Is that why you were outside my apartment? Or is it something else?“

“Bright, knock it off,” Gil snaps, more harshly than he intends, but thankfully Malcolm doesn’t flinch or startle. He’s latched onto the puzzle in front of him like a dog with a bone.

“Why do you feel so guilty? I’m an adult, Gil. If we’d met now, you wouldn’t think twice about it.”

“Oh, I might,” Gil insists. He pushes Malcolm away again, and this time, there’s no resistance. Somehow, that kills the urge to flee, and Gil rubs his hand over his face as he summons up the right words. They grind like stones in the acid bath of his stomach. “Yes, it’s been months, and yes, I don’t like the way I’ve been thinking about you because you were a boy when we met. I was outside of your apartment because you called me that night.”

“Were you worried? Or jealous?”

“A little of both, but,” Gil nods towards Malcolm’s phone. “Look at your outgoing calls.”

“What?” Malcolm looks puzzled, but he picks up his phone and checks. He does the math and his ears turn red. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Gil says, forcing a chuckle. “So, I think I have a pretty good idea of how much you appreciate being called ‘kid’.”

Malcolm takes a moment to process the information and fit it into whatever mental profile he’s built around the situation and Gil. He draws in a deep lungful through his nose and releases it in one long exhale. His posture changes slightly. He’s gearing up to argue, Gil realizes, and hastily holds up a hand to stop the kid before he gets going.

“We’re not having this conversation,” Gil says. “Your mother already thinks the worst of me, you’re under my supervision, and you’re a good twenty years younger.”

“We _are_ having this conversation,” Malcolm counters immediately. “I’ll deal with my mother—frankly, she’s interfered in my love life enough; technically yes, but also technically, it’s not against the rules; and do you _really_ think you’re the only older man I’ve chosen to go to bed with?” His brow raises on the last point.

“None of those guys showed up at your house when you were eleven and gave you candy.”

“You’re right, none of them did. _You_ did. And yes, that night was as impactful to me as it was to you. You’ve been a formative presence in my life, and I admit that. But forget the past and focus on now. I’m an adult, and I make my own choices,” Malcom pauses, and looks up briefly. “Granted, not always the best choices, but I’m not wrong about this one.”

Gil risks reaching up to take hold of Malcolm’s shoulder and look him square in the eye. “As a fellow adult who makes their own choices, I’m going to bed. Alone.”

“My biggest sexual fantasy is getting sucked off by you and being told how good I am while I have candy in my mouth,” Malcolm blurts out.

Stunned, Gil immediately falls back against the cushions and covers his face with his good hand. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters, eyes screwing shut. If Malcolm’s intention was to get him picturing it vividly in the forefront of his mind, he succeeded.

Malcolm shifts, and Gil knows what he’s reaching for without even looking. “Don’t,” Gil says, but he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t want to mean it.

“You still buy them,” Malcolm says, and there’s a crinkling sound as his fingers dig into the dish in the middle of the coffee table. It’s cut-crystal. It was Jackie’s grandmother’s. “You still keep them out and carry them in your pockets.”

The wrapper makes a plasticky squeal as Malcolm tugs it at both ends, and Gil drops his hand to close it over the candy suspended between the pinch of Malcolm’s fingers. “Stop,” Gil tells him.

“I will, if you want me to,” Malcolm says with raw-edged sincerity.

Gil looks at him. Really looks at him. He’ll be hurt, but it won’t crush him. Just knowing that Gil has felt this for him might be enough to buoy Malcolm and get him to the other side, where he can move on to someone better for him. But will there ever be someone like that? Someone who knows what he needs and how to give it to him? The same flurry of arguments and excuses and wild fantasies that Gil has been struggling with for months rises up, and he finds his fingers plucking the candy from Malcolm’s hold.

“Stop and let Daddy do that for you,” he hears himself say.

Malcolm’s calm shatters. He jerks so hard he nearly falls off the edge of the couch.

“Stand up for a minute, kid,” Gil tells him.

He does as told, his hands trembling—both of them, Gil notes as he shifts towards the middle of the couch. Gil’s is shaking, too, even as he pats his thigh to invite Malcolm to straddle his lap, and uses a calm, confident tone that almost always works on submissive types, to say, “Don’t worry about the leg, I’ll be fine. Stitches are on the outside, so keep your weight to the right. Understood?”

“Yes,” Malcolm replies.

“Yes, Daddy,” Gil corrects him gently.

“Oh god. Yes, Daddy,” Malcolm moans as he hitches up the soft jersey cotton of his yoga pants and slides into Gil’s lap. He spreads his knees wide, borrowed Yankees tee puddling between them, obscuring the obvious bulge of his cock. He hovers for a moment before carefully letting his weight settle.

“There, see? Daddy’s just fine,” Gil murmurs. He can hear the strain in his own voice. The taut-wire thrill tightening his throat. “We’re going to do this right or not at all. So, you told me your fantasy, now tell me how you like to use safewords and what’s on or off the table.”

Malcolm is so keyed-up it looks like he wants to say that absolutely nothing is off the table, but he rests his hands on the tops of his thighs and thinks it through. “The sex the other night was a little rough, which I normally like—and you seem to know what you’re doing, so fuck, I can only imagine what it would be like to have you spank me—but I think I want my first experience with you to be more tender,” Malcolm says. Then he hastens to add, “That’s not to say it has to be vanilla. I’d enjoy being restrained. Despite my fantasy, I prefer receiving generally, and if you give me ten minutes to clean up, Daddy, you can have me any way you want me.”

“Stoplights or safeword,” Gil reminds him.

“Safeword. Amygdala.”

Gil rolls the piece of candy around between his thumb and forefinger and silently curses that he’s down an arm. He raises the candy, and Malcolm’s mouth parts slightly, pink tongue flashing behind his teeth.

“You’ll get your reward, kid,” Gil says, popping the piece into his own mouth. He slaps Malcolm lightly on the thigh. “Now, go get yourself ready for Daddy. Kit is under the sink, if you want to do it right.”

Malcolm’s teeth close on his lip, and his giddy excitement is palpable as he goes to do just that. Gil’s own excitement rests on a shaky foundation, a house of cards built on landfill. Thankfully, the break gives him time to strategize how this is going to go. And worrying about making it good for Malcolm distracts him from whether or not it’s the right call in the first place.

He rolls his good shoulder to limber it as he moves himself into the bedroom.

“Forgive me for this, hon,” he says under his breath, taking the pillows from the half of the bed he still thinks of as Jackie’s. He doubles them up against the headboard and ditches his socks and jeans before perching on the edge of the mattress and easing the sling off.

Malcolm had chosen the stretchiest knit top to bring to the hospital, but getting it off is still going to be as much of a struggle as putting it on. Gil’s breath hisses through his teeth before he bites the cuff to tug it down over the heel of his good hand and pinch it in place with his feeble left—bouncing back from the chunk taken out of his arm is going to be a bitch. He gets midway to extracting his elbow when Malcolm reappears to linger at the threshold.

“Come on in,” Gil tells him, spitting the fabric out of his mouth. He nods down at himself. “Give me a hand, won’t you, kid?”

“I would love to, Daddy,” Malcolm says. There’s not an ounce of shyness in his tone, but his fingers hesitate before he curls them under the hem of Gil’s shirt. The brush of his knuckles against Gil’s belly is cool and damp, and they leave behind a trail of sparks as they skid up his chest.

When he’s left bare-chested, he checks the butterfly bandages taped in a line across his pec and the edges of the dressing on his shoulder. The skin feels warm there, tender, and he nods at the sling, letting Malcolm help get it back over his head and clipped in place. Relaxing into it eases some of the hurt. He catches Malcolm's hand to draw the kid's attention then widens the space between his knees to pull Malcolm closer to the edge of the bed.

“Bright, the way you look in my shirt had me aching from the get-go,” Gil tells him, and now it’s his turn. His pulse is thudding in his ears as his touch finds the waist of Malcolm’s yoga pants then slips up to brush bare skin. Malcolm feels soft as velvet under his palm, and Gil soaks up every little quiver of muscle beneath his hand as he strokes Malcolm’s side. “Did putting it on make you hard, too?”

Malcolm swallows and nods. The excitement must be cascading through his nerves; his legs have begun to shake faintly, and his lips are parted as his breath thins.

“How hard are you right now?”

“So hard, Daddy,” he breathes, the words barely more than a whisper.

“Get ready for rule number one: you’re going to keep that shirt clean the whole time you’re a guest in my house because you’ll be sleeping in it and nothing else. You okay with that?”

“God, yes.”

“Take it off.”

Malcolm peels it off overhead and does a half-assed job folding it and placing it on the nightstand to his left. Gil smirks inwardly. There’s that boundary-pushing.

“Look at Daddy’s sweet boy,” Gil says, letting his gaze travel leisurely across Malcolm’s body. His arms are pricked with gooseflesh, and amidst the sparse scatter of hair on his chest, his nipples are pebbled. He’s got love bites on both shoulders and across his pecs, and one small mark reddens the slope of his belly near the hair trailing down from his navel. Gil brushes it with the pad of his thumb then slowly and deliberately leans forward to put his mouth there. Malcolm’s belly quivers at the first brush of Gil’s whiskers against his skin, and a sound leaks out of him when Gil drags his lip over the mark. “Did you have a good time with your friend, Matt?”

Malcolm hesitates to answer.

“Be honest.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you like looking in the mirror and seeing what he left on you?”

“Yes.”

Gil gives him a light kiss at the dip of his navel as a reward. “What if Daddy wanted to leave a mark on you?”

“Please,” Malcolm moans.

“Right here,” Gil murmurs, mouth sliding back to tease at that strawberry bruise. His mouth is flooded wet, and he breathes in the scent of his soap on Malcolm’s skin. He’s going to taste sweeter than the candy still melting on Gil’s tongue.

Another rush of sound pours past Malcolm’s lips, as rich and sweet as honey.

“Be a good boy and answer Daddy,” Gil says, pulling away to look up Malcolm’s face.

The sight of him alone is enough to nearly undo Gil. The light coming in from the living room haloes through the fringe of Malcolm’s hair, and his slackened mouth begs for a kiss. “I want it,” he says. “I want it more than anything.”

“Now that’s not true,” Gil says, letting his tongue roll out, purpled by the candy and gleaming wet. He’s fucking rock hard, his cock throbbing to the beat of his pulse, each little twitch rubbing it against the fabric of his boxers and making him wish it were the soft flicks of the kid’s tongue teasing at the sensitive spots instead.

“More than anything _right now_ ,” Malcolm corrects. His fingers flex at his sides, anxious to touch.

“Put your hands in Daddy’s hair,” Gil tells him, and Malcolm groans as he slips his fingers into Gil’s hair and clutches at his skull like it’s a lifeline. “No pulling.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“That’s my good boy,” Gil says, and latches his mouth to Malcolm’s skin. He sucks hard, pulling a harsh gasp from Malcolm as he draws a fresh mark to the surface. He feels Malcolm’s fingers fan out, spreading wide to avoid the reflex to curl and clutch, and Gil swipes his tongue over the spot like a balm before surveying the result. The mark he’s left is bigger, darker, a half-dollar bruise that’s going to remain stamped on Malcolm’s skin for a week.

Malcolm is all tension now, so turned on precome soaks through the front of his pants. Gil rolls his neck, encouraging Malcolm to move his fingers again and dare to scratch lightly at his scalp. He hums in his throat, and Malcolm grows bolder but does as told and refrains from pulling.

“Second rule, you ready?”

Malcolm nods.

“No touching your own cock, no matter how badly you want to. The only cock you’re allowed to touch tonight is mine,” Gil tells him. “Can you do that?”

“I can.”

“Repeat it.”

“No touching my own cock, no matter how badly I want to,” Malcolm repeats with a touch of impertinence.

“Okay then, Bright,” Gil says, lifting his hand to run it through his own hair and dislodge Malcolm’s fingers. “Let Daddy see what you want him to put in his mouth.”

Gil clucks his tongue when Malcolm looks ready to shove down his pants like they’re on fire. “Slow,” he orders and huffs a quiet laugh when Malcolm makes a frustrated are-you-kidding-me sound. “You’ve gotta go slower, kid.”

“This isn’t part of my fantasy,” Malcolm says cheekily, but he obeys, slowly easing the waist of his pants down. The elastic catches against the base of his cock. He’s so turned on, his cock doesn’t want to bend.

“Too bad, so sad,” Gil says, enjoying the view and every additional inch of skin bared by Malcolm’s strip tease. His fingers trace lightly over the bulge in his boxers. “It’s part of mine.”

The kid’s dick responds to that, straining under the tented fabric where the sides of the waistband dip down far beyond where they’re trapped on the length of him. Malcolm starts to shift his grip, looking to gather the pants taut to slacken the front, but Gil shakes his head and says, “Nuh-uh. Hands stay where they are.”

Stalled because he can’t free his cock easily without touching it, Malcolm groans, but he loves it. Sure, he could keep going and wait for the tension to reach the breaking point and for his cock to spring free, but Gil waits for him to work out the alternate solution. 

He does. Maybe by reading Gil’s expression or maybe out of sheer desire to be naked sooner. “Will you help me, Daddy, please?” he asks.

“Of course, I will,” Gil answers. He taps Malcolm’s wrists—one before the other—to encourage him to let go of the elastics, and his pants snap back into place, hanging lower on his hips now with his cock deliciously hidden again. One at a time, Gil turns Malcolm’s hands palm-up and then presses a lingering kiss into the center of each one. “Daddy loves to help his boy.”

Gil gives Malcolm’s hand a firm squeeze before transferring the hold to his slim hip. The fingers of Gil’s left hand twitch, wanting to mirror the touch—to grip him tight and give him a hungry smile that promises he can give the kid whatever he wants, however he wants it.

“That brings us to our third rule: if you want something from Daddy, no matter how embarrassing you think it is, you ask for it.”

Malcolm’s hand dangling opposite flexes to fight a tremor.

“I don’t need to hear it right away,” Gil reassures as his fingers dip into Malcolm’s waistband. “But Daddy’s been around the block, kiddo, and he likes to make people feel good. So, if you’re into puppies or a bit of bad cop, or hell, you want me to tie you down, fuck you all night long, and promise to put a baby in you, Malcolm, you just tell Daddy. Okay?”

“Okay,” Malcolm says, his reply strained, both of his hands balled into fists. That last one certainly got to him.

It makes sense, Gil supposes, that the kid would have a bit of a breeding fetish. He’s terrified of being just like his father, and maybe equally terrified of never being a father, so exploring that safely must be that same sort of thrill some people get having the flat of a knife run across their skin. Maybe the kid likes that, too.

Finally uncovering Malcolm’s cock fully, Gil licks his lips and says, “Fourth rule: No coming in Daddy’s mouth.” He licks the point of a tooth and glances up at Malcolm, but the kid’s not even looking. His eyes are shut tight, but it’s not fear. Is he that fucking close already? “Open your eyes and look at me, sweetheart. Malcolm.”

Several quick, desperate breaths later, Malcolm does, and his cock bobs wildly in front of Gil’s face.

“No coming in Daddy’s mouth, you got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Daddy doesn’t mind swallowing, but he’d rather feed you.”

“Oh fuck,” Malcolm says, and he looks away again, head tipping back to fix his gaze somewhere on the ceiling.

He must be so gorgeous when he’s been kept on the edge of orgasm for hours. Forced not to touch himself because oh, he’d try, Gil has no doubt about it. He’d keep trying until he earned himself a smack for being naughty, and Gil would have no other choice but to pin him and tie him down to help him keep still.

“Fifth rule,” Gil says, and Malcolm groans and twists.

“Enough rules,” he whimpers. “Please suck me, Daddy. _Please,_ I need your mouth on me.”

“How can I? You didn’t bring the candy dish in, baby.”

“Fuck!” Malcolm breaks into a giddy laugh, and his hands fly up to clutch at his own neck. The impatience that he’s been holding back so well finally wriggles free, rippling through him as he lets out an explosive breath. “Oh my god, Gil. Can I _please_ go get the candy?”

“Yeah, kid, enough rules, go fetch.”

Malcolm is gone and back in a blink, thrusting the bowl to Gil, who takes it in hand and sets it on the bed beside him. He blindly picks out a piece and thumbs off the wrapper, holding the golden yellow piece pinched between his thumb and forefinger and letting Malcolm know he can take it with his mouth.

Malcolm starts to bend at the knee, but Gil stops him. He can’t have the kid at eye level for this. He can’t risk pulling forth that decades-old memory that lingers like a trapdoor in the back of his mind. Luckily, Malcolm is quick to change tactics, saying, “Will Daddy put it in my mouth?” and letting his tongue roll out.

“Happy to, baby. Pineapple’s your second favorite, isn’t it?” Gil asks, delivering the piece onto Malcolm’s waiting tongue.

Malcolm nods slightly as he sucks it into his mouth, his expression turning rapturous. Gil lets his thumb push in past Malcolm’s lips, and the way he sucks on that, too, for a moment leaves Gil with zero doubt that Malcolm Bright is a fucking gold-medal cocksucker.

“Taste good?”

Malcolm tucks the candy into his cheek to say, “Yes, thank you, Daddy.”

“Now, let's find out how my boy tastes,” Gil says, dipping his head down to catch the tip of Malcolm’s cock with his tongue.

The kid sucks in a breath so fast he worries for a second Malcolm’s going to hoover the candy into his throat and choke, but he hears the click of it against Malcolm’s teeth and a wet slurping swallow. It’s hotter than it has a right to be.

Gil’s never particularly relished sucking dick, not in the same way he can spend an afternoon between a woman’s legs and not come up for air, but Malcolm is _responsive_. Each movement of his tongue seems to trigger a reaction, and Malcolm’s hands are restless again.

He pulls off and takes hold of Malcolm’s cock at the base, angling it up and to the side. He says, “Play with your nipples,” as he mouths kisses along the shaft, and after a while of watching Malcolm toy with them tells him, “Harder. Let Daddy see you pull at your tits.”

Malcolm shudders, and he gives one a good pinch, skin pulling taut as he tugs until his fingers slip off and his flesh snaps back.

“Mmm, that’s perfect, Malcolm. Keep doing that,” Gil says. He licks lazily near the crown of Malcolm’s cock as he appreciates the show. “Keep being good for me. You have more hair on your chest than Daddy, don’t you, kid?” Bemused, he eyeballs that tight, little nipple and the scatter of dark hair around it as Malcolm gives it another tug and moans. 

“Can’t grow a beard like Daddy, though,” Gil says, turning his cheek so his whiskers brush over sensitive flesh.

“Wait, fuck.”

“Close?”

“Yes,” Malcolm says, swallowing.

Gil nuzzles his face against Malcolm’s cock again. “How close?”

“Too close. _God._ ”

“Are you going to be a bad boy and break a rule?” he asks, still rubbing his face against Malcolm’s cock. He watches Malcolm try and mentally review, short-circuiting his thought process by letting his fingers stretch down to curl under the kid’s balls and tease at his taint. He gives Malcolm’s balls a squeeze, testing the weight of them and giving his sac a tug.

“I’m still close, Daddy.”

“Do you want to come already, Malcolm?”

“God, yes.”

Of course he does. Waiting for anything has never been the kid’s strong suit.

There’s a faint crunch, candy melted down to a sliver in Malcolm’s mouth, and Gil gives the kid a break to recover by reaching over to fish out another piece.

“Come get your candy from Daddy,” he says, and pops it into his own mouth. The sharpness of the lime candy makes his mouth flood, and he swallows as Malcolm moves and leans down. Damn, he knows the kid does yoga, but the way he moves is smooth as sin. Malcolm’s lips hover near his, waiting for permission, and then realizing that it’s either not going to come or he doesn’t need it, Malcolm’s tongue darts out to taste Gil’s lip.

Gil takes over from there, sucks the kid’s lip then opens his mouth to invite in Malcolm’s questing tongue. He passes the candy over—some things you never forget from high school—and rewards Malcolm with a deep, pleased hum. Gil keeps kissing him, soft and slow, sucking gently as his hand travels up to find the kid’s nipple. He catches the little nub with the edge of his thumbnail, toying with it.

“Wet this time,” he says, straight into Malcolm’s mouth. “Wet, as if Daddy was licking it for you.” He punctuates his words with the simultaneous flick of his finger and tongue.

Malcolm’s moan vibrates into the kiss.

“How badly do you want to come, Malcolm?”

“So fucking badly,” Malcolm whispers against Gil’s lips. 

“Hmm. That’s not all that convincing”

“But it’s the truth,” Malcolm insists. He squirms, his hips swaying from side-to-side as he resists the urge to reach down and give his cock a squeeze. ”Please let me come, Daddy. I’m so turned on it hurts.”

“Show me.”

Malcolm stands up to his full height, his palms skidding down his front to flatten near the base of his cock. Carefully adhering to the rules, the frame of his hands avoids his cock, but his fingers sneak down to rub near his balls. He must really be aching. His cock is twitching to the beat of his pulse, the head flushed dark as a plum and shining.

Gil sympathizes. His own dick has been a constant, throbbing pressure. If he’s ready to burst, he can only imagine how it must feel for Malcolm.

“You’ve been so good for me, Malcolm, thank you,” Gil says. “Now, play with those tits again, nice and wet like I asked, and maybe Daddy will give you a special reward.”

Malcolm lifts one hand and licks his fingers wet, the colors on his tongue flashing as he swallows noisily. They’re practically dripping as he starts to toy with his nipple again, rubbing it in arrhythmic motions, his attention scattered as Gil’s mouth gets near to his cock again.

“You look so gorgeous, Malcolm. I've jerked off thinking about having you bent over my desk and fucking into you,” Gil confesses. A guilty little zing goes through him, a dirty thrill like when he’d listened to Malcolm moaning over the phone. “Having my hand on your cock, feeling you hot and swollen, just like this."

He wraps his fingers tight around Malcolm, lips teasing the pre-come slicked head as he speaks.

“Stroked myself the other night thinking about it, in fact. You remember when you came into my office wearing that tie with the silver threading? Daddy went home that night and couldn’t get the way you’d looked at him out of his head.”

He gives Malcolm another squeeze, and the kid whimpers. Malcolm’s fingers had stalled, but they jumpstart in a heartbeat.

“That’s it, baby, just that like. Daddy would be doing that for you if not for his arm.”

Malcolm moans, wanting that touch as badly as Gil wants to give it to him. 

“You were so clever and so brave down there, kid,” Gil continues, his chest tightening with more than the hot desire to bring Malcolm over the edge. “You’re the bravest person I know, and Daddy loves that about you.”

The candy clicks against the kid’s teeth as he makes a faint, needy sound. What started as a lime-green marble must be the size of a cherry pit based on how fast he’d sucked that other one to nothing

“Now, city boy, since you’ve been so good for me, show Daddy how smart you are again by figuring out your reward,” Gil says. He gives Malcolm’s cock a firm tug and plants a fresh kiss along the shaft. The velvet skin burns against his lips.

“I—” Malcolm rolls the candy around in his mouth as he struggles to focus. He screws his eyes shut to be able to think as Gil continues to try and distract him. “You’ve already decided you’re going to fuck me, I knew that the minute I walked in here. Are you—you’re going to have me on top because you liked that on the couch. You were testing it there, really. You didn’t actually know if my weight would strain the stitches.”

“That’s my clever boy,” Gil says. “What else?”

Shivering with delight at the praise, Malcolm continues, “You’re willing to let me come first so I’m not as on-edge. The orgasm alone isn’t my reward, though. It’s…” he opens his eyes as he works it out. The last bit of the lime candy crunches into nothing, and his eyes widen further as he says, “You’re going to rescind the fourth rule.”

“Good job, kid,” Gil says and swallows Malcolm’s cock again.

“Oh fuck. Fuck,” Malcolm says, his hips push forward reflexively, and Gil’s lips bump against his fist. “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.”

Gil pumps his hand along Malcolm’s cock, lips chasing his fist and sucking hard, and it’s really only a few strokes before that first hot surge of come fills his mouth. Malcolm curls over him, hand bracing against his good shoulder, the kid’s entire body jerking as he empties himself into Gil’s mouth.

When Gil loosens his grip, Malcolm pulls out, still clutching at Gil, like he doesn’t have the strength to keep standing on his own. Gil spits the kid’s come into his cupped palm, and Malcolm doesn’t wait for him to hold it up in offering; he grabs desperately at Gil’s forearm and bends down, pausing only briefly to ask for permission with his eyes.

“Every drop,” Gil tells him and lets the kid lick his hand clean. It’s subtle torture. He could put his hand to the back of Malcolm’s head and enjoy that same soft sweep of tongue at his cock. Slick the mess across his face and into his hair then afterwards, when they’re both spent, take Malcolm with him into the shower and wash him head-to-toe. But Malcolm was right. He wants the kid on top of him, fucking onto his cock where he can watch. The same way Malcolm had wanted this to be a tender experience, he wants to know what it feels like to bury himself deep and see proof of just how much Malcolm loves it. “You’re so thorough, thank you, baby.”

Malcolm moans into his palm. “Thank you for feeding me, Daddy.”

“My clever boy earned it. You always do. You always come through in the end, no matter the situation,” Gil says, sticky palm dragging across the stubble of Malcolm’s cheek to cradle his face. He keeps the touch there for a moment before giving Malcolm a little pat to nudge him into motion.

“Does Daddy want my ass now?” Malcolm asks, sounding a little dreamy. He stretches his arms overhead, lithe body extending into a slight backbend, his jutting cock still hanging plump and begging for one last appreciative squeeze.

Gil gathers the kid’s softening cock and balls together in the cage of his fingers. He rolls the whole package in his hand, kneading the over-sensitive flesh and triggering a twitch in Malcolm’s belly. A whine rising in his throat makes Gil want to keep going, get him just a little wetter and toy with him until he’s begging for more or begging for it to stop.

God, this kid is going to ruin him.

“Top drawer of the dresser, left-hand side,” Gil tells him, reluctantly letting go. He scoots back, easing himself into place against the pillows as he watches Malcolm traipse over and dig out the lube. The pain meds are wearing off, and he feels the hurt from the ugly bruise on his shoulder blade radiate until he relaxes.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Gil asks. The bottle in there is half-full and not hard to find.

He spots the bob of Malcolm’s throat as the kid struggles with something he obviously wants to say. Eventually, Malcolm glances over his shoulder, his hair fallen loose, making him look ten years younger. Gil’s stomach tightens with nervous anticipation.

“I can ask Daddy for anything, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Daddy told me once to always use a condom. And I have. Always, every time, at least in the ass, but…,” he heaves a breath, and his hold on the lip of the drawer turns white-knuckled. His words tumble free in a rush, breathier and needier than when he’d admitted his fantasy. “Will Daddy please fuck me without one? I want you to come inside me, Gil. I want it so much.” 

The question blindsides Gil. Not the fact that Malcolm wants it, but that Malcolm thought he'd intended to put on a raincoat when he'd always planned on having the kid raw. He shouldn’t have assumed; he’s supposed to be the responsible one. “I want that, too, kid,” he says, when he finds his tongue again. He inches his boxers down, weight shifting to slip them down to his thighs, and when he’s gotten them down as far as he can, Malcolm’s crawling back onto the bed to take over the task. He hooks his hands into them, grinning as he pulls them free of Gil’s legs, and then he’s up on his knees.

Gil strokes himself as he watches Malcolm finger himself open. He’s got all his attention on Malcolm’s face—the curve of his pink-bitten lips and the stain of color on his tongue—while Malcolm’s gaze is glued to Gil’s hand, to the pads of his fingers whispering over his cock. 

The kid pulls his fingers free and wipes them clean on his thigh. He shuffles forward and straddles Gil’s thighs, saying “Daddy’s ready to fuck me, isn’t he,” as his weight settles briefly atop Gil’s legs. His hips move fitfully, and he leans in to ask for a kiss with the soft bump of his mouth against Gil’s. Malcolm’s softening cock hangs down, brushing between Gil’s thighs as he rocks, nudging against his balls. “Daddy’s ready to fill me up.”

At this rate, the only thing Daddy’s going to do is shoot it on his own stomach. Gil runs his knuckles up the center of Malcolm’s chest and down again. He could spend a whole afternoon petting the kid like this, hands wandering over bare skin.

“Slick up Daddy’s cock,” Gil tells him. His lips catch and drag against Malcolm’s. “Slick up Daddy’s cock so he can fuck you.”

He’d thought getting the kid off first would slow him down, but Malcolm is still keyed up. Slippery fingers fumble with the bottle, and he spills too much in his palm. There’s no such thing as too much, Gil assures him, but as the tunnel of Malcolm’s fist envelops him he regrets the statement. His hips strain upward, stopped only by a sharp twinge at the stitches in his thigh, and he grits his teeth, frustrated at the hindrance.

“Do you like the way it feels, kid, touching my cock?” he asks, as he grabs a couple tissues from the box on the nightstand. He lets Malcolm give him a few more tugs before he’s telling him to stop and helping wipe his hand clean. He does as thorough a job as he can, over the palm and between each finger, in part to give him a few more seconds to calm down and not lose it the second he’s rubbing up against the kid’s hole.

“I love touching it, Daddy, but I need it in me,” Malcolm begs, tipping his weight forward. He inches forward, until his soft dick is pressing against Gil’s belly. He scatters kisses near Gil’s ear and tilts his bottom. “Gil, please.”

“Fuck, kid,” Gil breathes, reaching down to hold the base of his cock and angle it better for Malcolm to skewer himself.

“Daddy wants me to go slow, right?“ Malcolm says, fingers meeting his to help guide Gil’s cockhead to breach him.

What Daddy really wants is everything hanging in this very moment: seeing the ecstasy play out along every inch of Malcolm’s body, from the concentration between his brows as he sinks down and takes Gil in past that inner resistance to the brief flicker of a smile that turns into a satisfied gasp as the inches sink into him.

“You’re doing great, kid. You feel so good,” Gil encourages. He can’t compare with a porn star, but he’s up there on the bell curve. “Slow and steady until you’ve got it all. You’re making Daddy feel so good.”

Once he’s gotten it all, Malcolm’s eyes open again. 

“You’re going to have to do all the work for Daddy,” Gil tells him. He curves his hand at Malcolm’s bottom where it tucks into his lap, the kid fitting perfectly against him like a jigsaw piece. 

“Yes, sir,” Malcolm says, hands settling into place below his ribs. With his core engaged, Malcolm doesn’t actually need them to hold himself up, hardly putting any pressure where the heels of his palms meet near the center of Gil’s chest—he’s used to having his wrists cuffed together, Gil realizes, and his head knocks back against the headboard as his cock throbs inside Malcolm.

“Christ,” Gil mutters, every nerve ending aflame as Malcolm starts to ride him. The kid’s fingers curl, his knuckles going as white as the butterfly bandages taped to Gil’s skin, and Gil toys with his own nipple as Malcolm works himself on his cock. He summons up enough spit to say, “Tell me how it feels, kid. Having me inside you.”

“Better than I ever dreamed it could be,” Malcolm whispers. His thighs quiver as he lifts himself up and sinks down again, the hot slide of his body taking Gil deep making each stroke ecstacy. “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you for letting me have your cock.”

He guides the kid into a rhythm by touch alone, the heel of his hand pressing to indicate _up_ and the curl of his fingers squeezing for _down_. Gil's certain with each roll of Malcolm's hips that this will be the one that will finally tip him over, but he lasts longer than he’d have thought possible. He’s on the edge for minutes that feel like hours, drowning in the sweet, clenching heat of Malcolm’s body, in the soft, blissful look on the kid’s face.

When the sucker punch of orgasm finally hits him, it takes his breath away, abs tensing under Malcolm’s hands, and a loud groan spills out of him as he spills into Malcolm. 

“Oh, god. Oh, god, I can feel you coming,” Malcolm says, and the kid _squeezes_ , tightening around his pulsing cock, milking each last drop from him. “Gil, fuck. _Fuck_.”

Malcolm keeps rocking against him, euphoric, and little aftershocks of pleasure ripple through Gil’s body.

The ice blue of Malcolm’s gaze carves into the heart of him. “No one’s made me feel that good in a long time, Malcolm,” he tells the kid quietly, honestly.

“I’ve never felt this good,” Malcolm admits, curling down to kiss him again. Not needy or wanting this time, but proving with the lazy thrust of his tongue how blissed out he is. “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you so much.”

They slip apart, Malcolm pressed in a long line against his right side, and everything falls into silence. Gil keeps an arm around him, idly stroking along his back. Malcolm’s hand is restless, too, the pads of his fingers tracing parallel to the knife wound across Gil’s chest.

There are words piling up in Gil’s throat like a traffic jam. He catches bits of Malcolm’s hair in his fingers, silken strands falling away like feathers. Jackie’s hair had been so much thicker, always tousled and wild after a roll in the sheets. His gaze skips to the little shrine of things atop the dresser that he hasn’t been able to part with.

“Hey, kid,” he murmurs. “Do me a favor.”

“Mmm?” Malcolm lifts his head, and stretches like a cat. “What sort of favor?”

“Go pick a mixtape off the rack and pop it in that old boombox.”

“Sure,” Malcolm agrees, sliding out of bed and padding over to the old stack of cassettes. He trails a finger down the row of hand-written labels with names like ‘Ice-T 4 the Heat Wave’ and ‘Sergeant’s First Day’ and ‘Boston Beats & Blues (2006)’. “Jackie made all these?”

“She did. You can see she started making some for you, too, as you got older. No one had tape players anymore by then, though, and she always hated CDs. Tapes or vinyl, only, that woman.”

Malcolm picks one from the rack and turns it over to read the tracklist; Gil wonders what the odds are he knows a single song on the list. Malcolm cracks open the case and pops it in the player. “Shoop” starts playing, and Malcolm smiles to himself as he turns to see if Gil has any other requests.

“You can have them, if you want them,” Gil says. “She loved you like you were her own son, you know. Never did want kids, but then there was you.”

Malcolm’s smile softens further. “She was a special woman.”

“It was different for me,” Gil admits. “I never thought of you as a son.”

The look on Malcolm’s face nearly shatters him, and Gil shakes his head. “No, kid, listen. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not that I didn’t care for you, I just—I had my own kind of hero worship for you. I wanted to protect you, sure, keep you out of harm's way, but you were so damn smart. First time you told me you wanted to be a cop just like me, I could see it clear as day.”

“Does that mean you regret what just happened?”

“I don’t know yet. But I hope to high heaven I don’t,” Gil tells him. “Do you want to sleep in here with me tonight?”

Malcolm’s thumbs rub circles over the cassette case. After a moment, he nods.

Easing himself out of bed, Gil flips back the covers. “Go get your restraints while I brush my teeth. You can have my side.” He doesn’t want Malcolm to think he’s any sort of substitution, and whether or not Jackie would approve, he’s been treating her half of the bed as inviolable for too long. Plus, then the kid can tuck up close against his good side as close as he wants. “Just buckle in a little tighter so you don’t give me any fresh bruises, all right?”

Malcolm’s gaze flicks to where Gil is positioning the pillow and lingers there. He sets the case down gently atop the dresser, and his lashes sweep down in a slow blink. “Thank you.”

“Hustle, Bright,” Gil says, and goes about his nightly routine feeling more at peace with the idea of sleeping alongside Malcolm than he'd expected.

When Gil emerges from the bathroom, Malcolm is finishing securing his restraints to the headboard. He’s following the rules, the old Yankees tee hanging down just past his butt, the hem skimming the crease of his thighs. Gil nearly crosses himself, but deep down, he knows he’s already lost; no prayer’s going to save him from further temptation.

Once they’re in bed and Malcolm’s buckled into his restraints, Gil offers his arm as a pillow.

“One last rule,” Gil tells him, as Malcolm nestles up beside him. “The eighth and final rule is that I will always love you, Malcolm. _Always_.”

Malcolm shivers slightly and Gil pulls him tighter. “I love you, too, Gil. Always have,” whispers against his skin.

The songs on Jackie’s mixtape are slower now, mellowing out, and Gil lets himself get lost in them and the soft rhythm of Malcolm’s breath beside him.

At least, that is, until Malcolm’s head pops up, and he asks suddenly, “Wait, what are the other three rules?”

“Go to sleep, kid. I’ll tell you later.”

“Promise?”

Gil blows out a puff of breath, lips curling on a smile held secret by the dark. “Yeah, kid,” he says, chuckling quietly. "Cross my heart."

**Author's Note:**

> Read more of my [Prodigal Son fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Prodigal+Son+%28TV+2019%29&user_id=ponderosa121), or talk to me about this twink getting wrecked on Twitter [@ponderosa121](https://twitter.com/ponderosa121) or on Discord in [Prodigal Son Trash](https://discord.gg/fQaRgBD).


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